Raphael Madonna & Child Christmas Card

Celebrate with elegance this Christmas with one of the most frequently discussed and best-loved paintings of the Renaissance, Raphael's Sistine Madonna. Commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II as an altarpiece for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza, it was one of the last Madonnas painted by the artist. Regarding the Cherubim at the bottom of the painting, according to legend, when Raphael was painting the Madonna the children of his model would come in to watch. Struck by their posture as they did, the story goes, he added them to the painting exactly as he saw them. Another story says that Raphael rather was inspired by two children he encountered on the street when he saw them "looking wistfully into the window of a baker's shop."